Jugaad - the art of getting along

In earlier days, much before the internet casts its web over the population, everyone did everything.  Only when one could not really manage the task at hand, did one approach an 'expert'. Slowly expertise itself became highly focused and technology made things impossible for one to do all things (or the vice-versa).  I remember days when I was a kid, that Dad used to repair the tape-recorder, the cycle, electrical goods and what not, at home.  We never called in painters to paint the home - Mum did it all!  We never ever employed a housemaid.  All the daily work of the house was done by us (mostly Mum!).  Of course, even the products of those days were sturdy.  Dad's wrist watch saw the small glass-encased cubicle of a technician only once or twice its lifetime of 50 years!

However, now-a-days even the minutest task requires a technician.  The task is so complicated. With the availability of information on the internet it should have been the other way round.  DIY should have become more a possibility than an impossibility.  Products are such that it is easier to buy a new one than repair the existing one.  Then there is always the argument about time - or lack of it.  The concept of jugaad - hindi word, meaning 'making it work and getting along' - is actually now used to denote incompetence or utter misery!  The word originally and actually means low-cost creative engineering to solve a problem.

Call it progress or advancement, I still prefer the days of old when one could dismantle a water pump, do the needful repairs and then reassemble it all by oneself.  Or replace every bit of the archaic air cooler - fan blades, belt, switch, cable, motor winding, hose pipe - even if it meant running to the market more than twice to replace required parts of the exact measurement.  And if it still did not work with its exact parts, tweak things around to get it to work - the additional noise it made or the occasional leak was not a big issue!